While applying the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine to as many people as possible remains vital to the country’s pandemic response, equal importance must be given to ensuring that the second dose is administered at the right time, said Dr. Anthony Fauci .
His comments, made during the White House coronavirus briefing on Monday, come as many questioned whether the second, or so-called booster injection, could be postponed as the country faces problems with vaccine supply.
Although the Modern and Pfizer mRNA vaccines, which are currently approved in the United States, resulted in a neutralizing antibody response that was over the limit after one dose, said Fauci, the second dose produced a 10-fold response.
“The reason why it’s important is not just the height of the response and the potency of the response, but when you reach that level of antibody, you get a greater range of response,” he said. “In [the] response range, we mean that it covers not only the wild type and the virus currently in circulation, but also the variants that we see circulating – particularly 1.1.7 and 3.5.1, so it’s not just a matter of potency, it’s a matter of breadth of what you can cover. “
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He added that a “theoretical problem” that could be created by choosing only one dose of the two-dose jab is that if you have a suboptimal response, instead of eliminating the virus, you may “actually be inadvertently selecting more mutants. “
Some suggested studying whether the country could switch to a single dose approach. While “it is not unreasonable to suggest a study,” said Fauci, the “practicality” of one creates additional obstacles, he noted.
“If you look at the number of people that would be needed in a study to answer that question, again one against two, with vaccines currently available, the time it took to get information about [the] Phase 3 and the number of people that this study with all the right answers would take several months [to get] a significant answer, “he said.” At that time, the amount of vaccine that would be available would almost make this issue somewhat debatable. “
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At the beginning of the briefing, the director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Dr. Rochelle Walensky, said that almost 700 cases of the UK variant were detected in 34 states. She said that although the country saw a 20% drop in new cases last week compared to the previous week, the importance of public health measures remains high.
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“We must continue to reduce these cases,” she said.